About Miró I el Vell, comte de Rosselló

Count of Conflent (870? - 896) and El Rosselló (French: Roussillon) (878-896), son of Count Sunifred I of Urgell-Cerdanya, and Ermessenda, and brother of Wilfred I el Pelós (the Hairy). Upon the death of Count Salomó (869-870) of Cerdanya-Urgell, Guifré (Wilfred) I was awarded the governance of the corresponding counties, except for that of Conflent, as it was pagus, under Salomó (although it traditionally belonged to the county of El Rosselló), and was awarded independently to Miró, since his family county of the Urgell-Cerdanya territories was comprised of important lands, and whose governance originated back to the time of Bel·ló of Carcassona. In 876, he entered, along with brother, Guifré, clergyman and monk Sunifred, and Viscount Lindoí of Narbona (French: Narbonne), into fierce battle with the powerful Marquis of Septimània, Bernard of Gòtia, who invaded and ransacked the counties of El Rosselló and Narbona. Severely rebuked by Pope John VIII, in France at the time (878), he nevertheless maintained the county of El Rosselló as a result of Bernat of Gòtia's misfortune of having rebelled against Louis II. Miró defended the Eixalada monastery, and when it was later washed away in floods after heavy rainstorms, (878), he defended the new monastery of Cuixà, which replaced it. He married with Quíxol, and had a daughter, Godlana, who married with Count Benció I of Empúries. After Miró's death, the county of El Rosselló was passed over in part to his brother-in-law, Benció, beginning in 896, with only the coastal area remaining, but still including the episcopate city of Elna (French: Elne). He was succeeded by his nephew, Miró II el Jove (the Younger), Count of Cerdanya, following the death of his father, Guifré (Wilfred) I el Pelós (the Hairy) in 897, to obtain the countships of Vallespir, El Alt Rosselló, El Conflent, El Capcir, and most likely La Fenolleda.